On the Arrow
by eliska
Summary: Oneshot. She never broke promises. Never. Stendy.


Sometimes it all comes down to one sentence to inspire a (albeit crappy) fic. Find it if you can… oh, and this isn't a songfic. Though, I must admit, I've incorporated several lines (which have been modified) into the sentences and the dialogue. :x

Hey, I'm starting to like writing het now… although the next thing I'm posting up will still most likely be slash. xD

Aaannd… I don't exactly know if the ending is counted as tragic or not. It's up to you guys to decide~

Constructive criticism is very much welcome. I don't know, but I think this isn't one of my better fics… -_-;;

Disclaimer: On profile.

- - - - -

He stood at the edge of Stark's Pond, wondering when she would be there. Or rather _what_ would come, or would be there for him… if anything would come at all.

There aren't any cures when it comes to the broken heartstrings of a lost child, with the exception of maybe a warm hug or a chocolate chip cookie. But he wasn't a child any more than a tree was a frog, and all the past had been so long ago. So very long ago, he smiled, and the smile was no more of a smile than a tear. Stan wished she would come, like she always did when they were children.

Wendy was… what, twenty-four, twenty-six? He couldn't remember, not since they parted ways on _that day_ so long ago. She said she would follow him, if he really wanted her to. Dazed and left wondering for her meaning, he told her that if she wanted, she could. But he never really gave an answer at all, nor gotten one in response.

_"I've stayed too long here," he said. "I don't know about this, it's just… I need to get away from this place. For a life, a life of my own. It just about sucks down here, don't you know?"_

_"I know," she said, and stood on her toes as her lips brushed against his forehead gently. He didn't vomit. "I'll wait here for you."_

Wendy Testaburger never broke promises. This much Stan knew.

The wind was strong that day, but he didn't care. It hurt when his eyes were more than two-thirds open, but he needed them to see; if anything, he would gladly have the brilliant snow melt, even though it was a picture of perfection around him, to say the least. Kyle would already be wondering where he'd gone to, as they had made plans to meet at the airport in Denver. But there could always be the reason of delayed flights.

And if it got down to the worst, he'd just tell Kyle he needed some time alone.

He'd understand. He always did. Although he'd probably point out that it was a stupid idea—a _really_ stupid one—to put two appointments on the same day. Maybe Stan shouldn't tell him he didn't really make an appointment _per se_… it just happened that he thought she would be there. Call it a premonition, or something equally deserving of a raised eyebrow, but he wanted to be there. _Had_ to be there.

Stan had heard from Kenny—the only one of his friends who'd stayed in South Park, no surprises there—that right after he left at the end of senior year, most everyone had gone on to South Park Community College… most everyone but him and a few select others. Wendy had graduated as the salutatorian of her grade, second only to Kyle, and people had expected big things from them. Kyle, being the good boy he was, certainly did live up to their expectations; he went to Yale, pursuing a degree in law, and called back home every week. Stan was grateful they'd stayed in touch throughout the years, through thick and thin… because that was what super best friends are for, anyways.

Wendy, though, was a different matter.

Nobody knew where she went after graduation. Her parents had found a note tacked to her door the very next day

_(I'm going for now, and I don't know when I'll be back)_

and that had caused a grand mess that left her parents panicky and anxious to know where their daughter had went. It was so unlike her that she would disappear without notice, and that kept the whole town awake—for once—for longer than usual.

She sent home a postcard a month later, reading that

_(Don't look for me, I'm in my own place now, and I'm happy here)_

she was fine and they didn't need to worry about her. It was a promise, and her parents knew her enough to know her promises were gold.

So they, in time, let it pass by.

Various postcards and emails reached her friends and family throughout the years, the timing always inconsistent; a postcard may come one day and the other would show up three months later. Stan had wondered, briefly, how she'd gotten hold of his address in Phoenix when he'd never told her he'd be going to Arizona. It didn't matter, he supposed, because it all boiled down to one, painfully obvious fact.

He missed her, and had emailed her maybe thousands of times asking where she was, and in her replies there were always cheer and smiles… but never the answer he was looking for. She told him about charity work, about her college friends, her life, but never exposed her whereabouts. It was infuriating, actually, that he couldn't get to her even like this.

_"…I went hiking today, Stan… it was so fun! Remember the time we went up near those caves on the mountains near South Park? I miss those times…"_

Two wrongs never can equal to one right, but if two people that left could end up coming back…

She would come. She had to. She_ promised_.

It had left him long ago, the immediate sadness and incredulity that had dawned upon him when Stan was first noted of her disappearance; what was left behind was a feeling—not exactly hollowness, but close—that hungered for more than the little clues and tidbits her stories and emails fed him. He stared at his tracks in the snow, wondering if they would lead her back to him.

Love, what is love? It was an eternal question, one that could not be answered by anyone and anything, fully. _Did she ever love me like I love her?_

_The heart breaks passively_. He doesn't know, still doesn't know, whether or not the longing inside of him was just a figment of the past or something more. Maybe one day it will come, the whole brutal force of her leaving will hit him in the face with a sledgehammer and he'll fall, for the last time. If she never came, that was. Sometimes you can never get enough of a person, and _this_… this was the living embodiment of a tragedy in the making.

He started, then, when the sound came.

Soft and melancholic, the tune whispered around him, stealing its way into his body, bone and marrow. Stan recognized it, even after nearly a decade had passed since he had last heard it… coming from her lips.

"_I'll save you._"

"Wendy?!" Around, the snow had stopped; it was a world of white, with nary a trace of people, girl in beret or not. Gripping his heart, Stan walked

(almost frantically)

towards the sound, trying to find its origin. _She's here. She __must__ be here._

"Wendy!"

"_I'll never break you. I promise._"

Looking back at their younger days, one could never have fathomed that she—a happy, charity-loving and caring girl—would have fallen in love with sad songs. Bebe had frequently joked that Wendy had too much happiness in her, and those melodies were the only thing that could balance it out, bring some sadness into her because life always has had ups and downs. One could never exceed the other, they said. But all that melted away, now, because the only thing he focused on was _her_.

"_It's nothing new, Stan._"

"I know." _But where are you?_ Everywhere he looked was snow, snow, snow. Trees that could've served as hiding spots. Houses in the far distance that she might've been in, before. Stan knew he was going paranoid, but who was there to tell him what to do? The world seemed to spin around him, sending signals he couldn't decipher, as his hopeful eyes continued to beg the heavens for some reprieve. "Wendy, please… oh, you don't know how much I fucking miss you."

"_For the very last time._"

He thought, through the hazy folds of memories, he could see her face—the girlish, everlasting face of youthfulness and joy. In that memory she smiled at him, and—was that after the war, the long war? That she told him she loved him, and no more. A smile; through the tears in his eyes, Stan told himself that yes, it was true. Because he could not break the promise to her, and because she came back.

"I've always loved you. Did you know that?"The wind howled at him in response, tearing those words away and carrying them

(to her)

to faraway places, places he'll never go to nor ever know about. In a heartbeat, as the weary blue eyes turned towards the icy grandeur of the pond.

A flash, and he could've sworn there was a violet movement at the far side of the pond. It was gone in an instant, but there could be no more asked of the light… and this much he knew. Somewhere else there would be more smiles and more hope, and all that was reserved for later._ When the time comes, I'll ask her why. But not now. Never now.  
_

_I promise.  
_

Stan smiled, oddly, and started to trudge back through the heavy drift.

* * *

She smiled as she watched his retreating figure, even as the tears rolled down her porcelain skin.

"_For you, I'll swallow the ocean._"

Fin.


End file.
